The people in Iraq want the U.S. occupation to end. The
U.S. soldiers in Iraq want to come home. On Saturday,
October 25, tens of thousands of people in the U.S.,
joined by delegations from countries around the world,
will go back into the streets to demand End the
Occupation, Bring the Troops Home Now! Under the banner,
"The World Unites Against U.S. Militarism," the
demonstration, marching from the Justice Department to the
White House to the Pentagon, will also demand an end to
the looting and destruction of social programs by the Bush
Administration.

The Bush Administration lied to the people, to the
Congress, and to the United Nations as it raced to wage
war against Iraq. The Bush administration is now carrying
out a cover up of its lies and deceptions.

Every day, people are dying as a consequence of this
illegal occupation. Every day human misery expands in the
drive for world Empire and corporate globalization. Every
day, vital social programs that serve and protect working
people in the U.S. are being destroyed as the Bush
administration cynically manipulates the slogan of the
"war on terrorism" to carry out the social transfer of
wealth from the bottom to the top. It has served as a
public relations ploy for their Robin-Hood-in-reverse
politics. Stopping Bush's war abroad and his war at home
is a matter of life and death. None of us has the luxury
of waiting. The time to act is now.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. GIs have
been killed and maimed. As the anger of the Iraqi people
will inevitably grow, the body count on both sides will
sharply increase.

As the anti-war movement predicted, the Iraqi people view
U.S. forces as colonial occupiers, not liberators. U.S.
troops, frightened by the hostile environment and
encouraged by the racist climate created by the military
brass, are killing and being killed in a war that serves
only the interests of U.S. oil monopolies and corporate
elites - George W. Bush's real constituents. U.S. soldiers
and their families are now realizing that high government
officials, mostly millionaires who shuttle between
corporate boardrooms and government posts, are using U.S.
troops as a private security detachment for Corporate
America's plunder of Iraq's oil riches.

The October 25 International March on Washington will
include delegations invited from countries around the
world whose banners will represent resistance to the
threat posed by the Bush Administration's hyper-aggressive
"preemptive war" strategy. The Bush Administration has
also just won approval from Congress to proceed with the
creation of a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons
explicitly designed to be used in the Third World in
coming conflicts. The march will demand an immediate end
to this new nuclear arms race.

As we continue the movement in opposition to the
occupation of Iraq, we must also oppose the daily threats
against the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran, Korea,
Cuba, the Philippines, Colombia, Liberia, Zimbabwe, and
all others that are targets of the Bush administration.

The demonstration will be followed on October 26 by an
assembly with international delegates from the global
anti-war movement to assess and strategize challenging the
Bush Administration's war drive and the component assault
on civil rights and civil liberties taking place in many
countries under the cloak of "national security" laws,
including the Patriot Act in the U.S.

THE WAR AT HOME

The Bush administration will spend $2.7 trillion in a vast
expansion of the U.S. military-industrial apparatus, while
eliminating or severely cutting taxes for Corporate
America and the one percent of the richest part of the
United States population to the tune of $1 trillion. The
administration is pursuing a calculated strategy to create
a fiscal crisis inside the United States so that lawmakers
will be compelled to cut or eliminate social programs for
which there will no longer be funds.

Pentagon officials now admit that they intend for the U.S.
to maintain at least 150,000 troops in Iraq for the
"foreseeable future," while the cost of the U.S. war in
and occupation of Iraq is nearly $4 billion a month, a
"burn rate" that will also continue.

The government of the richest country in human history is
spending more for war than any government in human history
and has its troops stationed in more than 750 military
installations and bases located in more than 130 countries
all over the world. This is the means by which the Bush
administration, the Pentagon and Corporate America are
advancing the goal of Empire.

The rapid expansion of U.S. militarism under the Bush
administration is not only a threat to the people of the
world, it is a calculated assault on the standard of
living and rights of working people. Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz have a plan to destroy every social
reform that has been achieved since the 1930s. What are
they seeking to destroy or privatize? Social security,
medicare, medicaid, public education, affirmative action,
civil rights, women's rights, reproductive health, l/g/b/t
rights, environmental protections, and any other programs
or social rights that are perceived as either a
restriction on corporate power and profits or are a focus
of attack by the ultra-right's political program. Under
the Bush Administration, the war at home has also meant a
rise in attacks against communities of color. Police
brutality against the African American and Latino
communities in particular have escalated, from New York
City to Ohio and across the country.

The October 25-26 weekend is also the second anniversary
of the signing of the so-called Patriot Act authorizing
political arrests, indefinite detentions and domestic
spying. As the Bush administration - which only came to
power due to massive racist disenfranchisement and voting
fraud -- violates international law it has been
systematically engaged in a campaign of division and
repression in the United States including a wholesale
assault on the Bill of Rights, institutionalization of
racial profiling, and aggregation of near dictatorial
powers to the Executive branch. The demonstration will be
a political challenge to the attack on civil rights and
civil liberties and the expansion of the system of
repression in the U.S. and in countries around the world
which have also adopted new repressive National Security
laws.

The people of the world went into the streets unparalleled
global mobilizations before the war started. On October
25, we will go into the streets again. The anti-war, civil
rights and social justice movement, whose ranks are being
joined in ever increasing numbers by the family members of
military personnel and U.S. veterans, can create the
effective political force that will end the occupation of
Iraq and bring the troops home immediately. It was only
the people's movement that ended the invasion and
occupation of Vietnam and it will be the global people's
anti-war movement that will help end the U.S. occupation
of Iraq.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition was formed in the days after
September 11 by progressive organizations and people in
the United States who recognized the need to take
immediate action in response to the Bush administration's
headlong rush to war and the racist attacks against the
Arab and Muslim communities in the U.S. The Coalition
organized the first national demonstration against war and
racism following September 11 on September 29, 2001, which
brought 25,000 people into the streets of Washington DC
and 15,000 in San Francisco. The Coalition has worked to
build an anti-racist, peace and social justice movement,
including mass mobilizations on April 20, 2002 (in support
of justice for Palestine) and October 26, 2002 (the first
demonstration in opposition to the war drive against
Iraq), and the first global day of action against the war
in Iraq, January 18, 2003, when millions of people around
the world took part in simultaneous demonstrations,
including a half a million people in Washington DC. The
Coalition coinued to organize mass demonstrations in
February and March and began the campaign against U.S.
occupation of Iraq in April, 2003.

Its national steering committee represents major national
organizations that have campaigned against U.S. militarism
and intervention in Latin America, the Caribbean, the
Middle East and Asia, and organizations that work towards
social and economic justice and civil rights for people
inside the United States.